Heart's Desire
by Cyberwolf
Summary: And sometimes he daydreamed. [SasuTen]
1. Far Desires

…_where fiery dreams and far desires  
__are rained on, like old fires_

-Edwin Arlington Robinson

* * *

It was commonly believed - among those who _knew _him, that is, and were privy to information about the Uchiha massacre – that Uchiha Sasuke's fondest dream in life was the defeat and execution of his older brother, Itachi. Admittedly, Sasuke did not do much to dissuade this notion, with his half-obssessive training and his constant mutterings about avenging. 

This commonly-held notion was, however, untrue.

As a matter of fact, Sasuke's dearest desire was _not_ to kill Itachi. In fact, one might say that his heart's desire was the opposite of killing Itachi, because it very much involved a living, breathing older brother - as well as living, breathing parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

All Sasuke really wanted was to have his clan back, the way they had been before…_before_. He wanted his older brother to flick him on the forehead and teach him things, he wanted his mother to embrace him so that his face was buried in her dress and he could inhale the sweet scent of her, he wanted his father to look at him and be proud, he wanted the smell of fresh bread in the morning while his aunt smiled at him, he wanted to see other faces that looked like his, he wanted, he _wanted…_

But Sasuke knew that he could never have what he wanted.

He knew that his family was dead – dead, dead, _dead!_ He hadn't needed a balding man with dull eyes – who called himself a psychiatrist and a doctor, which insulted all the medic-nin for miles around - to regard him earnestly and exhort him to 'work through his _feelings'_. He had never been in denial. He had never tried to pretend anything other than his clan was dead, by the hand of his older brother, and that all that was left for him was to kill Itachi.

He knew his duty.

But he could not help but dream.

* * *

**AN: **Been experimenting with writing the Naruto characters with different characterizations than usual, and I wanted to try and explore Sasuke. Who I'm feeling kind of ambivalent about - I used to hate him, and sometimes I still do, but I'm RPing him on a board and this community is making me read fics where I like him. (I usually hate him in SasuSaku, come to think of it)

Anyway, hope you enjoy!


	2. Flames of Yesterday

_meanwhile, am i to view, as at a play,  
through smoke the funeral flames of yesterday  
and think them far away?_

-Edwin Arlington Robinson

* * *

Sasuke could not remember how old he was when he began. He had still been in the Academy, he knew that much, but the exact year escaped him. It might have been late autumn, turning into the pale, snowless winter of Konoha, or early spring, because the air had been cool. But he could not be sure. 

He had been going home, speeding over the roofs and walltops like a young ninja ought to, and mentally preparing a training menu for himself. It was late afternoon and the light was growing dim – the lamp-lighters were beginning their work – and the streets were filled with people leaving work, or going to dinner, or picking up a few last-minute purchases at the stores. Everyday things, for everyday people with everyday lives. People who weren't like him, who hadn't had their whole worlds ripped away from them…

He had been running lightly across a rooftop when he had checked, suddenly, skidding a little. He turned wildly in a circle, trying to ascertain from where the noise had come. Then he heard it again – high and clear and joyous – and he flung himself down onto the flat rooftop, as if he feared to be seen. Carefully, using all the stealth that the Academy and his family had taught him, he crept to the west side of the rooftop, where he had heard the sound come from. He raised his head, slowly, breath trembling as he peered down.

He had heard a child's laughter. And everyday he heard children laughing in the Academy, and in the streets, and usually the laughter was only the recipient of his scornful indifference, but this time…she had sounded _so_ like Yuriko-neechan, his cousin whose mother was his mother's best friend and sister, who gave him chocolate when he visited…

He watched the children in the street below him and tried to ignore the prickling in his eyes.

There was a whole pack of them, ranging from chubby, half-naked toddlers barely able to walk to grinning boys who strutted with the pride of recently-won genin status, hitai-ate shiny-new on their brows. Most of them were similar in coloration and conformation, with skin darker than Konoha norm and slender frames. Hair of varying shades of brown was worn long, even with the boys, and usually tied into braided pigtails, or twin hair-buns in the case of a few of the girls.

One such girl was the source of the laughter that had caught him, her head flung back as she laughed at an older boy sprawled at her feet. Sasuke squinted at her, a sense of familiarity tickling at his mind. Surely he had seen her before. She danced away, still laughing, as the boy sprang to his feet and lunged at her. It quickly devolved into a mock-brawl, the other children standing round and cheering. They fought hard but playfully, trying more for showmanship than for any actual desire to win.

They scattered as a crowd of women descended upon the children, scolding and calling and tugging at whatever ears they could. They ordered them away to dinner, and in a short while the street was empty and silent.

Sasuke went back to his own, empty house. But he was there again the next day, watching the children who played as he would not allow himself to.

* * *

He did not watch them everyday; his self-imposed training schedule would not allow it. But he watched them far too often, using all his stealth skills so no one would notice him, and in a way this one-sided hide-and-go-seek was his own game with them. 

Sometimes, they would throw up their heads like wild animals scenting the wind and look around warily, as if they sensed him. It was always the children who went to the Academy – he could spot them from the ones who didn't by their movements and their eyes – and most often it was the four who he had picked out as the best among them: three boys – two already genin – and the girl whose laughter had caught him that one cool evening so long ago.

And sometimes, even more rarely, one of the four would actually abandon the games and leap up into the roofs, scanning for him. A couple of times they had almost caught him. He didn't mind; it was like added spice to his own game, it was almost like they were playing with him. And it was good that they were wary, that they would protect the others…they wouldn't _let…_

And sometimes he daydreamed that he was down there, surrounded by his own cousins.

He learned that they were not a clan, not in the way the Konoha clans were, and that their physical similarities was due more to racial traits than to shared bloodlines; they were an ethnic community, and the children were second or third-generation descendants of refugees from the Empire of Yong, far to the east. They held fast to their own culture, speaking in a foreign tongue as often as in the shared language of the shinobi nations, wearing clothes of strange cut and style.

And they acted like a clan.

He would watch them, hidden and silent, heartsick for what he had lost, what he had had, and could never have again.

* * *

So I took the liberty of making up a background for Tenten. Honestly, I find that one of the best things about writing her, the freedom to make up back-story. Whee! D 

'Yong' is the Korean word for dragon, though the Chinese character for yong also carries the definition of 'dragon'. Basing the ethnic community a little on personal experience.


	3. Feverladen Wine

_what is it in me now that rings and roars  
like fever-laden wine?  
_

-Edwin Arlington Robinson

* * *

He knew her name, called out in those many games she played with the other Yong children, before Kabuto had said it. He even knew how to pronounce it in the proper way, with the tilt to the vowels and the accent on the hidden second syllables. 

He knew that she was good with weapons – he had seen her showing up the older boys who had been made genin before her, seen her amusing others with deft tricks of sleigh-of-hand, usually involving sharp edges.

He knew that her favorite food was sesame-seed dumplings, because that was what she demanded when she won the stakes for snacks, and that she hated umeboshi because she always traded that away.

He knew her birthday, how her father looked when he had to come fetch his unwilling daughter away from the games and how he looked when she did something that pleased him, made him proud. (It made Sasuke's throat tight to think of it). He knew the way that she winced away whenever her friends mentioned her mother and the way they tried not to, knew what were her favorite games and what were the games she always lost – and he knew that, with her, some games were both.

He knew _her._

But he didn't let on that he recognized her.

He _couldn't_. Imagine how it would appear if _Uchiha Sasuke_ – foremost victim of stalkers, fangirls and invasions of privacy – himself appeared to be stalking another genin?

* * *

He _hadn't _known who her team-mates were; they never went into the Yong enclave. He decided they were both freaks. 

Who let their kunoichi team-mate be pushed around by door-guarding punks? Where was their sense of chivalry? Even he protected _Sakura_, even if he knew it would only feed her obsession with him, and that was _with_ Naruto on the team, who had many times proven that he would injure himself severely for just the _chance_ to protect her.

And what did these _freaks_ do? They let their kunoichi be manhandled so badly the other ninja murmured sympathetically – and ninja _don't murmur sympathetically_. Meanwhile, one of them ignores _his team-mate_ for Sakura.

Sasuke disapproved.

At least the green-clad – what was it Naruto had called him, geji-mayuu? – boy took the fall right alongside her, but that stupid Hyuuga just _stood there_ and watched.

Sasuke added another item to his mental '_Why Uchiha are better than Hyuuga'_ list. He didn't deign to give his name to the older boy.

* * *

When he woke up after the fight in the Forest of Death, _she_ was there. Unlike the other females in the clearing, who were as usual fixated on him, she didn't even spare him a glance. She was too busy with her green-clad teammate, scolding him for something, holding onto his shoulders and shaking him so hard he might have got whiplash. 

She didn't know him. She didn't know – wasn't _supposed_ to know – how he had watched her from the rooftops, learning every little detail of her life until he felt he shared it. That was only an illusion, something a little wrong with him, she didn't really share anything with him, she didn't _owe_ anything to him.

So _why_ was he jealous?

* * *

Kakashi dragging – that was exactly the term for it, no exaggeration – him away from the Chuunin eliminations was one of the biggest disappointments of his life. 

He'd wanted to observe what he might be up against in the finals, using his Sharingan to gauge his opponent's speed and strength and skill, uniquely suited to it as no one else in the exam was. (Not even that stupid Hyuuga).

He'd wanted to watch his team-mate, wanted to investigate those flashes of deep power and inexorable will that he'd displayed in the Forest. He wanted –as he had said to Naruto himself, and seeing the other boy's eyes light up at his acknowledgement had made him feel larger than he was – to fight him, wanted to test his own prowess against another's.

And he'd wanted to see Tenten fight.

* * *

I realized that Sasuke is kind of coming across as a stalker. 

(thinks)

KARMIC BALANCE HAS BEEN ACHIEVED.


	4. Far From Worlds and Wars

Note on the timeline of Heart's Desire:

-Prologue and Part 1 are set pre-series, extending to just before Sasuke is assigned to Team 7.  
-Part 2 is set during the Chuunin Exam.  
-Part 3 is set just after Episode 107, Naruto and Sasuke's fight on the rooftop, after Naruto returns with Tsunade.

* * *

_What ruinous tavern-shine  
Is this that lights me far from worlds and wars_

-Edwin Arlington Robinson

* * *

Sasuke was angry, so angry – the pattern of his life had been disrupted, and he felt that everything that he had been cautiously allowing himself to appreciate, to treasure, to hold close to himself - they had only _seemed_ to be bright and beautiful and worth fighting for to his young Sharingan - and the veil had been ripped from his eyes by his brother's deadlier gaze. 

How dare Naruto improve so quickly, how dare he presume to stand on equal footing as Sasuke? (He ignored the tiny voice inside of admiration, of eager challenge, of _brotherhood) _How dare Kakashi presume to advise him, to tell him to let go of his vengeance? (He felt no curiosity about his sensei's suffering, no respect for what the man had shown himself capable of, no response to the reaching out, he didn't, he _didn't)_

All that remained for him was Itachi, and the death he had been charged to bring him.

* * *

But somehow his wandering feet brought him to the Yong enclave, on the rooftop where he had so often watched them play. The older children were often busy with increasingly adult responsibilities, and new faces began to appear in the crowd, but in many ways the scene was as it had been many years ago – games and laughter and quick flares of temper, never anything that lasted beyond the sunset – children playing in their home. 

Sasuke stiffened as a familiar figure moved lithely through the hard press of bodies in some intense ball-game. Her high clear laughter rang out as she trapped the white-and-black sphere between her feet and began to run towards the other end of the chalk-marked playing field. Other people flung themselves on her, trying to stop her progress, but she dodged them deftly – even the others with Konoha hitai-ate – and kicked the ball into a makeshift goal. She raised her arms in triumph, other children hugging her or slapping her back in approval, while the other team groaned and the audience applauded.

Tenten.

Tien, Jian's daughter, _zhang-zhi _and _jie, _older sister, or _mei-mei_, little sister, depending on the age of the one calling her – what they called her, here in her little empire-home, in words that outsiders didn't understand. Bun-head, the third on Team Gai, weapons-girl – that was what they called her outside, in Konoha, rough and quick and fighting names for a rough and quick and fighting kunoichi.

But somehow Sasuke watched her, watched as she knelt beside a younger child wailing over a scraped knee, watched as she smiled at another girl who waved at her, and he let himself shape a very quiet, very secret, very small wish in the back of his mind.

He wanted to share what she had. He wanted to be able to be _there_, _with _her and the others, not just watching from above, apart, alone.

He wanted to be able to call her _his._

* * *

Later, when the Sound's elite Four came, offering power and position at Orochimaru's side, he found it in him to refuse. Not when he had Naruto to defeat, to push him to greater heights - and to be right alongside the whole while. Not when he had Kakashi who understood what it was like, Kakashi who had eyes like his. 

Not when he had something he wanted so much in Konoha.

**

* * *

**

**AN**

That's it! And now we delve into the realms of AU. Sequel to be written once I'm done with my other projects - one NejiTen and two other SasuTen. Yes, that's right, I'm as surprised as you are: SasuTen outnumbering my more-canon OTP?


End file.
